Can light spin like a miniature tornado? Researchers have now shown that it can. Teams from the University of Warsaw, the Military University of Technology, and Institut Pascal CNRS at Université Clermont Auvergne have created so-called optical tornadoes inside a very compact setup. The advance could lead to smaller light sources with complex internal patterns, potentially simplifying technologies used in optical communication and quantum systems.
“Our solution combines several fields of physics, from quantum mechanics, through materials engineering, to optics and solid-state physics,” explains Prof. Jacek Szczytko from the Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw, the leader of the research group. “The inspiration came from systems known from atomic physics, where electrons can occupy different energy states. In photonics, a similar role is played by optical traps, which confine light instead of electrons.”
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